It emerged in France in the second half of the 18th century under the influence of physicians and philosophers shaped by the intellectual context of the time.
[2] This medical philosophy persisted for over a century and found fertile ground at the University of Montpellier, an institution renowned for its openness to philosophical ideas.
[3] The term "vitalism" arose in the wake of the Montpellier school of medicine, in the south of France, and was notably introduced by Charles-Louis Dumas, dean of the city's Faculty of Medicine, in his Principes de Physiologie in 1800.
[3] It positioned itself as an intermediate stance between the mechanistic perspective of the early 18th century and the animist vitalism attributed to Stahl, as well as between materialism and spiritualism.
[1] By the late 18th century, the Montpellier school enjoyed significant prestige in France and entered into rivalry with the Paris school, which was more materialist and advocated an "organicist" approach to medicine, focused on the study of organs.